keeping our eye on the ball

My Dear Friends,

After the wild cheering and the grand speeches have died down, and our
Reasonable Side takes over from our Emotional Side, we blind people
need to take a deep breath and openly discuss where we can effectively
advance our Cause for Independence and Equal Partnership as Americans.
As our population ages, and our blind and low vision population grows
in number, and as the funds become stagnant or dwindle, we face
critical times.
What we decide to do during the coming months may determine the
quality of life for future generations of blind and low vision people.
In opening discussion over our future, we cannot avoid discussion
about our nation's politics, and the impact upon our course of action.
Let's remember that we can do this if we approach one another with
respect and love. We must have the thinking of all our members, not
just a few highly vocal folks. And who should we partner with? What
other organizations can we work together with toward our common goals?
From President Trump's inaugural speech, we can be assured that there
are going to be some radical changes in how we are governed. Such
changes will undoubtedly disrupt how some services are administered.
We must be ready, with sleeves rolled up, to act quickly to insure
that such changes do not ignore our needs.
These are exciting times. Let's pull together to ensure that they are
positive, exciting times.

Carl Jarvis, Director
Peninsula Rehabilitation Services
2510 Snow Creek Road, Quilcene WA. 98376
Phone: 360-765-4239
carjar82@gmail.com

Friday, January 20; a day that will live in infamy

Today, Thursday, January 19, marks the end of a dream. Despite major
setbacks, many of us still believed we could achieve that elusive
"American Dream".
Make certain you understand just exactly what will happen tomorrow.
The Ruling Class, tiring of the slowness and at times the bungling of
their Lackeys, have pushed them aside and will take up the reigns of
government.
Say farewell to, "Government of the People, by the People and for the
People". Enter the Age of Government of the billionaires, by the
billionaires and for the billionaires.
Forget striving for First Class Citizenship. Even the title of
Consumers will no longer apply, since the money needed to be a
consumer will soon be taken. Enter the return of Serfdom.
And before someone protests that these billionaires who are going to
profit even more through their seizure of our government, that they
would never do anything to weaken their source of wealth, remember,
these international corporations no longer need a single nation for
their protection and benefit. The international corporations are
themselves becoming world governments.
Who is there who can save us?
Welcome all, to the New Dark Ages.

Carl Jarvis

Re: [blind-democracy] our charter schools are the worst

Betsy DeVos can say what she wants about the value of Charter Schools,
but that does not change the fact that any efforts to underwrite
Charter Schools will begin the dismantling of our Public Schools.
Therefor, All Charter Schools are "bad".
We Americans have allowed our once great educational system to be laid
low through neglect. The rich CEO's tell us that our "whining" for
more money will not solve the crumbling Public Education. But these
same rich CEO's and their Shills, send their young to the finest
schools their ill gotten money will buy. Private tutors, small
classes, facilities that make public schools look like the prisons
they are.
Oh yes, wealth does have its privileges. But we seem to forget that
it was wealth earned by us, the Working Class, and commandeered by the
Ruling Class.
The solution is so simple that it is embarrassing to even mention it
here. Money!
New, state of the art facilities. Small classes with private tutors
at hand. Interactive education.
We do need to teach our children to involve themselves in their
educational process, rather than to be passive receptors.
But above all, Public Education must be preserved if we are to ever
have a chance at that fabled "American Dream".
So say after me...All For Profit Education is Bad...Really Really Bad!!!

Carl Jarvis

On 1/19/17, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@comcast.net> wrote:
> Not all charters are bad, but the for profits that Devos promotes here are
> the worst, most unnaccountable, and in many cases corrupt ones in the
> nnation.
>
>
>
> Joe
>
> Betsy DeVos and Detroit charter schools: What you need to know Detroit Free
> Press Betsy DeVos may have been an unexpected nominee for Secretary of
> Education
>
> in the Donald Trump administration, but she's no stranger to the Detroit
> Free Press. For decades, we've covered DeVos, her family and her personal
> role
>
> in the creation of Detroit's charter school program. She is a Holland
> native. Here's a reading list to help you understand'DeVos' track record
> with education
>
> before becoming the nominee. Our latest work: A yearlong investigation
> published by the Detroit Free Press in June 2014 showed Michigan taxpayers
> pour
>
> nearly $1 billion a year into charter schools ' but state laws regulating
> charters are among the nation's weakest, and the state demands little
> accountability
>
> in how taxpayer dollars are spent and how well children are educated. In
> reviewing two decades of charter school records, the Free Press found
> wasteful
>
> spending and double-dipping; board members, school founders and employees
> steering lucrative deals to themselves or insiders; schools allowed to
> operate
>
> for years despite poor academic records; no state standards for who operates
> charter schools or how to oversee them; and a record number of charter
> schools
>
> run by for-profit companies that rake in taxpayer money and refuse to detail
> how they spend it, saying they're private and not subject to disclosure
> laws.
>
> Michigan leads the nation in schools run by for-profits. In a column in
> early December, Free Press Editorial Page Editor Stephen Henderson laid out
> DeVos'
>
> role in creating the state's charter school industry, and her unwavering
> loyalty to choice at all costs. We methodically made the case against DeVos
> as
>
> a national education leader. Henderson writes: 'DeVos is a believer, and a
> powerful influence wielder for the special interest she has championed. But
>
> that doesn't make her the right pick to helm an entire arm of the federal
> government. Wealth should not buy a seat at the head of any policy-making
> table.
>
> In a subsequent column, Henderson highlights a study that the charter lobby
> has referenced repeatedly (which DeVos referenced Tuesday night during
> questioning)
>
> on the performance of charter schools compared with traditional public
> schools. But even the authors of that study at Stanford University say too
> much
>
> can't be read into its results. 'Henderson writes: 'Research is a key
> component of the nation's education infrastructure, and that research has
> been telling
>
> us for years that charter schools in Michigan have not yet delivered on
> their promises. DeVos' record shows she's willing to pick and choose among
> data
>
> to make a point, but not to tell the fuller, more nuanced stories about how
> choice falls short. And earlier in the year, Henderson explains to readers
>
> the breadth of the donations the DeVos family made to legislators who gutted
> legislation that would have placed Detroit's charter schools under the same
>
> authority as traditional public schools to oversee quality control and make
> sure schools are placed where they are needed. It was a plan that won
> bipartisan
>
> approval in the state Senate. And unraveled in the state House. Henderson
> writes: 'The DeVos family, owners of the largest charter lobbying
> organization,
>
> has showered Michigan Republican candidates and organizations with
> impressive and near-unprecedented amounts of money this campaign cycle:
> $1.45 million
>
> in June and July alone ' over a seven-week period, an average of $25,000 a
> day. The giving began in earnest on June 13, just five days after
> Republican
>
> members of the state Senate reversed themselves on the question of whether
> Michigan charter schools need more oversight. Poor-performing charter
> schools
>
> in Michigan continue to get renewed, time after time. According to a Free
> Press review, almost two-thirds of Michigan's oldest charter schools, those
> open
>
> more than a decade, are in the bottom half of state rankings. Many critics
> point a finger at authorizers and the state, which sets no standards for
> when
>
> to close a school. Authorizers defend themselves vigorously, saying that
> they must give schools every chance to succeed. Two decades into Michigan's
> charter
>
> school experience, it's clear that some schools excel academically, others
> don't - and charters have not found the key to educating children in
> poverty.
>
> In other words, their results are similar in many ways to the traditional
> public schools they hoped to outperform. It's the combination of aviation
> with
>
> a more traditional high school curriculum that attracts students to West
> Michigan Aviation, a charter high school in Grand Rapids founded by Dick
> Devos,
>
> husband of education secretary nominee Betsy Devos.
>
>
>
>
> Betsy DeVos and Detroit charter schools: What you need to know Detroit Free
> Press Betsy DeVos may have been an unexpected nominee for Secretary of
> Education
>
> in the Donald Trump administration, but she's no stranger to the Detroit
> Free Press. For decades, we've covered DeVos, her family and her personal
> role
>
> in the creation of Detroit's charter school program. She is a Holland
> native. Here's a reading list to help you understand'DeVos' track record
> with education
>
> before becoming the nominee. Our latest work: A yearlong investigation
> published by the Detroit Free Press in June 2014 showed Michigan taxpayers
> pour
>
> nearly $1 billion a year into charter schools ' but state laws regulating
> charters are among the nation's weakest, and the state demands little
> accountability
>
> in how taxpayer dollars are spent and how well children are educated. In
> reviewing two decades of charter school records, the Free Press found
> wasteful
>
> spending and double-dipping; board members, school founders and employees
> steering lucrative deals to themselves or insiders; schools allowed to
> operate
>
> for years despite poor academic records; no state standards for who operates
> charter schools or how to oversee them; and a record number of charter
> schools
>
> run by for-profit companies that rake in taxpayer money and refuse to detail
> how they spend it, saying they're private and not subject to disclosure
> laws.
>
> Michigan leads the nation in schools run by for-profits. In a column in
> early December, Free Press Editorial Page Editor Stephen Henderson laid out
> DeVos'
>
> role in creating the state's charter school industry, and her unwavering
> loyalty to choice at all costs. We methodically made the case against DeVos
> as
>
> a national education leader. Henderson writes: 'DeVos is a believer, and a
> powerful influence wielder for the special interest she has championed. But
>
> that doesn't make her the right pick to helm an entire arm of the federal
> government. Wealth should not buy a seat at the head of any policy-making
> table.
>
> In a subsequent column, Henderson highlights a study that the charter lobby
> has referenced repeatedly (which DeVos referenced Tuesday night during
> questioning)
>
> on the performance of charter schools compared with traditional public
> schools. But even the authors of that study at Stanford University say too
> much
>
> can't be read into its results. 'Henderson writes: 'Research is a key
> component of the nation's education infrastructure, and that research has
> been telling
>
> us for years that charter schools in Michigan have not yet delivered on
> their promises. DeVos' record shows she's willing to pick and choose among
> data
>
> to make a point, but not to tell the fuller, more nuanced stories about how
> choice falls short. And earlier in the year, Henderson explains to readers
>
> the breadth of the donations the DeVos family made to legislators who gutted
> legislation that would have placed Detroit's charter schools under the same
>
> authority as traditional public schools to oversee quality control and make
> sure schools are placed where they are needed. It was a plan that won
> bipartisan
>
> approval in the state Senate. And unraveled in the state House. Henderson
> writes: 'The DeVos family, owners of the largest charter lobbying
> organization,
>
> has showered Michigan Republican candidates and organizations with
> impressive and near-unprecedented amounts of money this campaign cycle:
> $1.45 million
>
> in June and July alone ' over a seven-week period, an average of $25,000 a
> day. The giving began in earnest on June 13, just five days after
> Republican
>
> members of the state Senate reversed themselves on the question of whether
> Michigan charter schools need more oversight. Poor-performing charter
> schools
>
> in Michigan continue to get renewed, time after time. According to a Free
> Press review, almost two-thirds of Michigan's oldest charter schools, those
> open
>
> more than a decade, are in the bottom half of state rankings. Many critics
> point a finger at authorizers and the state, which sets no standards for
> when
>
> to close a school. Authorizers defend themselves vigorously, saying that
> they must give schools every chance to succeed. Two decades into Michigan's
> charter
>
> school experience, it's clear that some schools excel academically, others
> don't - and charters have not found the key to educating children in
> poverty.
>
> In other words, their results are similar in many ways to the traditional
> public schools they hoped to outperform. It's the combination of aviation
> with
>
> a more traditional high school curriculum that attracts students to West
> Michigan Aviation, a charter high school in Grand Rapids founded by Dick
> Devos,
>
> husband of education secretary nominee Betsy Devos.
>
>
>
>

Re: [blind-democracy] ‘Workers need to unite in face of boss attacks’

From that long ago day when King George's troops were sent packing, we
have seen the value of collective action. Back in the late 1890's
through the early 1940's, Working Class people joined together to form
strong Labor Unions. It was proven that in order to receive fair
wages for a days labor, united numbers carried the day. Employers did
not step forward and fairly reward their employees with pay raises.
But constant hammering at the Labor Unions by the Organized Bosses
began to cast suspicion on Group Activities. The Working Class was
hammered with stories about "self made men", and the Rugged
Individual, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Collectivism
became a dirty word, showing weakness and lazy, uncaring slobs.
Collective action was labeled Communism and Socialism, and compared to
subversive, underworld activities.
Add to this the erosion of the Extended Family, the break down of
established neighborhoods, dwindling attendance to churches and
community meetings, the decline of fraternal organizations such as
Lions, Eagles, Moose, Odd Fellows, and even the current isolation
brought about through on-line activities.
Organized Labor has fewer numbers than any time since the Second World War.
Are we Working Class folk really so blinded that we cannot tell that
the decline in our life style is directly tied to the decline of our
willingness to organize? The Corporate Bosses certainly understand
the value of joining forces.
True, they have a corner on the money, but we still out number them.
And that is the one thing they fear most.

Carl Jarvis




On 1/18/17, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> http://themilitant.com/2017/8104/810401.html
> The Militant (logo)
>
> Vol. 81/No. 4 January 23, 2017
>
> (lead article)
>
> 'Workers need to unite in face of boss attacks'
>
> SWP LA mayor candidate on doorsteps, picket lines
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Militant photos: above, Laura Garza; inset, Jonathan Batres
>
> Above, Jan. 6 Teamsters picket line at University of California Los
> Angeles. Dennis Richter, SWP candidate for Los Angeles mayor, joined
> strikers in solidarity with contract fight. Inset, Richter talks with
> teacher Arlene Washington at her doorstep Jan. 3.
>
>
> BY LAURA GARZA
> LOS ANGELES — "We haven't had a raise in four years, they've raised our
> health care costs, lowered what we get for disability, and new hires
> were switched to a 401(k)-style fund. They won't get the pension and
> retirement other workers get," Jon Kramer, a plumber at the UCLA medical
> plaza, told Dennis Richter, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor
> here, as they marched on the picket line Jan. 6. Kramer, who has worked
> at UCLA for 15 years, is a member of Teamsters Local 2010 and on the
> negotiating committee fighting for a new contract.
> "You're facing what a lot of workers confront," said Richter. "Bosses
> delay and delay on contracts knowing that workers are losing every day."
> The strikers are the skilled trades workers — plumbers, carpenters,
> electricians, elevator repair people, and other facilities workers — who
> work at UCLA and UCLA's medical center. Local 2010 represents some 600
> workers there, and 200 more at University of California at San Diego.
>
> Kramer said they are asking for a graduated scale of payments, depending
> on years worked, to make up for lack of raises over four years — from
> $7,000 for those with over four years on the job to $1,000 for those
> with a year. "But management is offering only $1,200 to $1,500 for those
> with four years and more, and nothing for those with a year," he said.
>
> "They've delayed the negotiations and are retaliating against our
> members," he said, citing examples of harsh disciplinary action being
> taken against unionists. "I had to defend two different workers, both
> misplaced their keys, both reported it immediately and said they would
> retrace their steps. In both cases the keys were found and turned in the
> same day. But instead of going through the different disciplinary steps,
> a warning first, etc., both were immediately suspended."
>
> "I'm here to give solidarity and to learn more about your fight so I can
> build support, and to explain how it will take more workers standing up
> for ourselves to take on the bosses' attacks," said Richter. Strikers
> plan to keep their picket line up for five days, and thousands of
> clerical workers at the university are organizing to join them Jan. 10
> in a one-day solidarity strike. Richter said he would urge other workers
> to join the rally.
>
> "I have an interview with the Los Angeles Times editorial board later
> that day," he told Kramer. "I'll come here first and then use the
> interview to explain the issues in your fight and call for support."
>
> "I'm running not because I think voting for me will change something,"
> Richter told several workers on the picket line as they discussed the
> bosses' assaults on workers' rights and standard of living. "The history
> of working-class struggle teaches us that all big questions facing
> working people, from wages and working conditions to war and cop
> brutality, are solved in the streets, not at the ballot box. I'm running
> because I want to talk with workers about how to build a movement that
> can bring solidarity with fights like yours and build up confidence in
> the capacity of workers to organize and fight for our interests, not
> depend on politicians from the twin parties that represent big business,
> the Democrats and Republicans."
>
> A number of workers wanted to talk about the rising cost of health care
> and how employers and the government are pressing to make workers
> shoulder more and more of the burden.
>
> "The problem is it remains a for-profit commodity, sold on the basis of
> making rich the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies and
> others," Richter said. "Obama never touched this, he just guaranteed a
> big payout to the insurance companies. We need to remove health care
> from being a commodity. We need to fight for universal health care paid
> for by the federal government as a basic right for all who live and work
> here."
>
> "My party organizes to visit workers on their doorsteps throughout the
> region and the country," Richter said. "Workers everywhere are
> discussing these challenges, trying to find an effective way to change
> things. We say there are two classes and three parties, and the SWP is
> the workers' party."
>
> "The bosses won't give up on their attacks, we will face more, and we
> have to get more prepared to fight back," Richter said. "In the end we
> need to fight to change this from being a system run by and for the
> ruling rich to one run by and for those who work, from the factories to
> the fields."
>
> A couple of strikers wanted to know more about the ideas Richter raised
> and picked up copies of the Militant.
>
> For more information on the Socialist Workers Party, contact the party
> branch in your area listed in the directory on page 8.
>
>
> Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [blind-democracy] Unanimous Jury In 1999 Civil Trial Found Gov Assassinated Dr. King

Well, this is one story I never read, or heard a word about. I am not
normally a conspiracy theorist, but this appears to be legit. I would
quibble over the claim that it was the plot of the government,
however. While those responsible were very probably answerable to
elected officials up the line, I would suspect that the actual
murderers were never elected to office. Nor would most Americans
condone their actions. The fact is that we Americans have allowed too
much control to be taken from us. The Oligarchy will protect itself
at all costs. Even to the point of "looking the other way" while
fanatical "protectors" do its dirty work.
Notice how the making of a National Hero out of Martin Luther King,
Jr. keeps him from becoming a martyr? The last thing the Oligarchy
wants is another Jesus Christ. As an American Hero, King, like
Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and other "Patriots", can be controlled
and presented in a manner that is no threat to the Oligarchy. Even
outspoken Helen Keller was turned from a critic of capitalism, into a
brave and courageous woman. It reminds me of the Mafia Bosses,
ordering the murder of an adversary and then sending the biggest and
most expensive bouquets to the funeral.

Carl Jarvis


On 1/17/17, M Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Unanimous Jury In 1999 Civil Trial Found Gov Assassinated Dr. King
>
> EDUCATE! ASSASSINATION, BLACK HISTORY, MLK
> By Kirsten West Savali, www.newsone.com
> January 16th, 2017
>
> Powered by Translate
>
> Above Photo: From Newsone.com
> Though the United States government has wrapped Dr. Martin Luther King
> Jr.'s
> legacy in the American flag, waving his words to symbolize racial harmony
> and patriotic solidarity even as institutionalized White supremacy remains
> embedded in policies detrimental to the very Black community he tirelessly
> strived to uplift, very little is spoken of the fact that a Memphis jury
> found the United States government guilty of conspiring to assassinate Dr.
> King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968.
> After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in
> Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a swift unanimous verdict on
> December 8, 1999 that Dr. King was assassinated as a result of a
> conspiracy,
> the NY Times reported at the time.
> The King family, who filed the civil suit, was awarded $100. They donated
> the minuscule amount to charity.
> Loyd Jowers, owner of Jim's Grill, which was close to the Lorraine Motel,
> claimed that the shot which killed Dr. King was fired from behind his
> restaurant, and that local, state and federal U.S government agencies, and
> the Mafia, were all involved. James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty to
> assassinating King, was renting a room above Jower's establishment and was
> allegedly an unwitting scapegoat.
> The restaurant owner named Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl
> Clark
> as Dr. King's assassin, according to a press conference transcript. A claim
> that would later be called into question along with other shocking details.
> According to the U.S. Justice Department, which painstakingly attempted to
> dismantle Jowers' claims and the mountain of evidence presented in the
> Memphis trial, Jowers insisted that ".a Memphis produce dealer, who was
> involved with the Mafia, gave [Jowers] $100,000 to hire an assassin and
> assured him that the police would not be at the scene of the shooting.
> Jowers also reported that he hired a hit man to shoot Dr. King from behind
> Jim's Grill and received the murder weapon prior to the killing from
> someone
> with a name sounding like Raoul. Jowers further maintained that [James
> Earl]
> Ray did not shoot Dr. King and that he did not believe Ray knowingly
> participated in the conspiracy."
> King's widow, Coretta Scott-King, expressed her gratitude to the jury and
> called on media to get the truth to the public:
> There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the
> assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's
> unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the
> verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their
> deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but
> also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself.
> It
> is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about
> an
> hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive
> evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr.
> Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government
> agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury
> also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James
> Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I
> want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution.
> Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination
> has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law. As we pursued this
> case, some wondered why we would spend the time and energy addressing such
> a
> painful part of the past. For both our family and the nation, the short
> answer is that we had to get involved because the system did not work.
> Those
> who are responsible for the assassination were not held to account for
> their
> involvement. This verdict, therefore, is a great victory for justice and
> truth. It has been a difficult and painful experience to revisit this
> tragedy, but we felt we had an obligation to do everything in our power to
> seek the truth. Not only for the peace of mind of our family but to also
> bring closure and healing to the nation. We have done what we can to reveal
> the truth, and we now urge you as members of the media, and we call upon
> elected officials, and other persons of influence to do what they can to
> share the revelation of this case to the widest possible audience.
> Dr.King's son, Dexter Scott King, called his father's assassination "the
> most incredible cover-up of the century" and released the following
> statement regarding the verdict:
> "We can say that because of the evidence and information obtained in
> Memphis
> we believe that this case is over. This is a period in the chapter. We
> constantly hear reports, which trouble me, that this verdict creates more
> questions than answers. That is totally false. Anyone who sat in on almost
> four weeks of testimony, with over seventy witnesses, credible witnesses I
> might add, from several judges to other very credible witnesses, would know
> that the truth is here."
> "The question now is, "What will you do with that?" We as a family have
> done
> our part. We have carried this mantle for as long as we can carry it. We
> know what happened. It is on public record. The transcripts will be
> available; we will make them available on the Web at some point. Any
> serious
> researcher who wants to know what happened can find out."
> King's other children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, also
> expressed relief at the verdict.
> Author, political historian and theologian Jim Douglass said that the truth
> was in that Memphis courtroom in 1999, but barely anyone was there to meet
> it face-to-face:
> I can hardly believe the fact that, apart from the courtroom participants,
> only Memphis TV reporter Wendell Stacy and I attended from beginning to end
> this historic three-and-one-half week trial. Because of journalistic
> neglect
> scarcely anyone else in this land of ours even knows what went on in it.
> After critical testimony was given in the trial's second week before an
> almost empty gallery, Barbara Reis, U.S. correspondent for the Lisbon daily
> Publico who was there several days, turned to me and said, "Everything in
> the U.S. is the trial of the century. O.J. Simpson's trial was the trial of
> the century. Clinton's trial was the trial of the century. But this is the
> trial of the century, and who's here?"
> What I experienced in that courtroom ranged from inspiration at the courage
> of the Kings, their lawyer-investigator William F. Pepper, and the
> witnesses, to amazement at the government's carefully interwoven plot to
> kill Dr. King. The seriousness with which U.S. intelligence agencies
> planned
> the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. speaks eloquently of the threat
> Kingian
> nonviolence represented to the powers that be in the spring of 1968.
> As previously stated, the Justice Department methodically countered every
> shred of evidence presented in the trial, and many people laugh it off as
> mere conspiracy theory, but Douglass insists that is not surprising at all:
> Thirty-two years after Memphis, we know that the government that now honors
> Dr. King with a national holiday also killed him. As will once again become
> evident when the Justice Department releases the findings of its "limited
> re-investigation" into King's death, the government (as a footsoldier of
> corporate power) is continuing its cover-up - just as it continues to do in
> the closely related murders of John and Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X.
> The intense irony in the U.S. Justice Department presenting a case to
> delegitimize a verdict reached in an American courtroom is not lost on
> anyone.
> TRANSCRIPTS
> View Full Trial Transcript
> View Transcript of King Family Press Conference on the Verdict
>
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> Unanimous Jury In 1999 Civil Trial Found Gov Assassinated Dr. King
>
> Educate! Assassination, Black History, MLK
> By Kirsten West Savali, www.newsone.com
> January 16th, 2017
> Powered by https://translate.google.com/Translate
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not
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> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
> Above Photo: From Newsone.com
> Though the United States government has wrapped Dr. Martin Luther King
> Jr.'s
> legacy in the American flag, waving his words to symbolize racial harmony
> and patriotic solidarity even as institutionalized White supremacy remains
> embedded in policies detrimental to the very Black community he tirelessly
> strived to uplift, very little is spoken of the fact that a Memphis jury
> found the United States government guilty of conspiring to assassinate Dr.
> King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968.
> After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in
> Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a swift unanimous verdict on
> December 8, 1999 that Dr. King was assassinated as a result of a
> conspiracy,
> the NY Times reported at the time.
> The King family, who filed the civil suit, was awarded $100. They donated
> the minuscule amount to charity.
> Loyd Jowers, owner of Jim's Grill, which was close to the Lorraine Motel,
> claimed that the shot which killed Dr. King was fired from behind his
> restaurant, and that local, state and federal U.S government agencies, and
> the Mafia, were all involved. James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty to
> assassinating King, was renting a room above Jower's establishment and was
> allegedly an unwitting scapegoat.
> The restaurant owner named Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl
> Clark
> as Dr. King's assassin, according to a press conference transcript. A claim
> that would later be called into question along with other shocking details.
> According to the U.S. Justice Department, which painstakingly attempted to
> dismantle Jowers' claims and the mountain of evidence presented in the
> Memphis trial, Jowers insisted that ".a Memphis produce dealer, who was
> involved with the Mafia, gave [Jowers] $100,000 to hire an assassin and
> assured him that the police would not be at the scene of the shooting.
> Jowers also reported that he hired a hit man to shoot Dr. King from behind
> Jim's Grill and received the murder weapon prior to the killing from
> someone
> with a name sounding like Raoul. Jowers further maintained that [James
> Earl]
> Ray did not shoot Dr. King and that he did not believe Ray knowingly
> participated in the conspiracy."
> King's widow, Coretta Scott-King, expressed her gratitude to the jury and
> called on media to get the truth to the public:
> There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the
> assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's
> unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the
> verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their
> deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but
> also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself.
> It
> is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about
> an
> hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive
> evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr.
> Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government
> agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury
> also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James
> Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I
> want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution.
> Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination
> has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law. As we pursued this
> case, some wondered why we would spend the time and energy addressing such
> a
> painful part of the past. For both our family and the nation, the short
> answer is that we had to get involved because the system did not work.
> Those
> who are responsible for the assassination were not held to account for
> their
> involvement. This verdict, therefore, is a great victory for justice and
> truth. It has been a difficult and painful experience to revisit this
> tragedy, but we felt we had an obligation to do everything in our power to
> seek the truth. Not only for the peace of mind of our family but to also
> bring closure and healing to the nation. We have done what we can to reveal
> the truth, and we now urge you as members of the media, and we call upon
> elected officials, and other persons of influence to do what they can to
> share the revelation of this case to the widest possible audience.
> Dr.King's son, Dexter Scott King, called his father's assassination "the
> most incredible cover-up of the century" and released the following
> statement regarding the verdict:
> "We can say that because of the evidence and information obtained in
> Memphis
> we believe that this case is over. This is a period in the chapter. We
> constantly hear reports, which trouble me, that this verdict creates more
> questions than answers. That is totally false. Anyone who sat in on almost
> four weeks of testimony, with over seventy witnesses, credible witnesses I
> might add, from several judges to other very credible witnesses, would know
> that the truth is here."
> "The question now is, "What will you do with that?" We as a family have
> done
> our part. We have carried this mantle for as long as we can carry it. We
> know what happened. It is on public record. The transcripts will be
> available; we will make them available on the Web at some point. Any
> serious
> researcher who wants to know what happened can find out."
> King's other children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, also
> expressed relief at the verdict.
> Author, political historian and theologian Jim Douglass said that the truth
> was in that Memphis courtroom in 1999, but barely anyone was there to meet
> it face-to-face:
> I can hardly believe the fact that, apart from the courtroom participants,
> only Memphis TV reporter Wendell Stacy and I attended from beginning to end
> this historic three-and-one-half week trial. Because of journalistic
> neglect
> scarcely anyone else in this land of ours even knows what went on in it.
> After critical testimony was given in the trial's second week before an
> almost empty gallery, Barbara Reis, U.S. correspondent for the Lisbon daily
> Publico who was there several days, turned to me and said, "Everything in
> the U.S. is the trial of the century. O.J. Simpson's trial was the trial of
> the century. Clinton's trial was the trial of the century. But this is the
> trial of the century, and who's here?"
> What I experienced in that courtroom ranged from inspiration at the courage
> of the Kings, their lawyer-investigator William F. Pepper, and the
> witnesses, to amazement at the government's carefully interwoven plot to
> kill Dr. King. The seriousness with which U.S. intelligence agencies
> planned
> the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. speaks eloquently of the threat
> Kingian
> nonviolence represented to the powers that be in the spring of 1968.
> As previously stated, the Justice Department methodically countered every
> shred of evidence presented in the trial, and many people laugh it off as
> mere conspiracy theory, but Douglass insists that is not surprising at all:
> Thirty-two years after Memphis, we know that the government that now honors
> Dr. King with a national holiday also killed him. As will once again become
> evident when the Justice Department releases the findings of its "limited
> re-investigation" into King's death, the government (as a footsoldier of
> corporate power) is continuing its cover-up - just as it continues to do in
> the closely related murders of John and Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X.
> The intense irony in the U.S. Justice Department presenting a case to
> delegitimize a verdict reached in an American courtroom is not lost on
> anyone.
> TRANSCRIPTS
> View Full Trial Transcript
> View Transcript of King Family Press Conference on the Verdict
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [blind-democracy] Building the Institutions for Revolt

Once again Chris Hedges sets forth an article steeped in reason and
common sense. It should be read several times by all of us.

Carl Jarvis


On 1/16/17, M Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Truthdig
>
> Building the Institutions for Revolt
>
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/building_the_institutions_for_revolt_201
> 70115/
>
>
>
> AddThis Sharing Buttons
> Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to More9
>
> Posted on Jan 15, 2017
>
>
> By Chris Hedges
>
>
>
>
> Mr. Fish / Truthdig
>
> Politics is a game of fear. Those who do not have the ability to make power
> elites afraid do not succeed. All of the movements that opened up the
> democratic space in America-the abolitionists, the suffragists, the labor
> movement, the communists, the socialists, the anarchists and the civil
> rights movement-developed a critical mass and militancy that forced the
> centers of power to respond. The platitudes about justice, equality and
> democracy are just that. Only when power becomes worried about its survival
> does it react. Appealing to its better nature is useless. It doesn't have
> one.
>
> We once had within our capitalist democracy liberal institutions-the press,
> labor unions, third political parties, civic and church groups, public
> broadcasting, well-funded public universities and a liberal wing of the
> Democratic Party-that were capable of responding to outside pressure from
> movements. They did so imperfectly. They provided only enough reforms to
> save the capitalist system from widespread unrest or, with the breakdown of
> capitalism in the 1930s, from revolution. They never addressed white
> supremacy and institutional racism or the cruelty that is endemic to
> capitalism. But they had the ability to address and ameliorate the
> suffering
> of working men and women.
>
> These liberal institutions-I spend 248 pages in my book "Death of the
> Liberal Class"
> (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131166027)
> explaining how this happened-collapsed under sustained assault during the
> past 40 years of corporate power. They exist now only in name. They are
> props in the democratic facade. Liberal nonprofits, from MoveOn
> (http://front.moveon.org/about/#.WHwG5FzRHfY ) to the Sierra Club, are no
> better. They are pathetic appendages to the Democratic Party. And the
> Democratic Party, as the community organizer Michael Gecan said, is not a
> functioning political party but "a permanent mobilization." It is propped
> up
> with corporate money and by a hyperventilating media machine. It practices
> political coronations and manipulates voters, who have no real say in party
> politics. There are, as the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin
> (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/sheldon_wolin_and_inverted_totalitarian
> ism_20151101 ) reminded us, no institutions left in America that can
> authentically be called democratic.
>
> But, even more ominously, the militant movements that were the real engines
> of democratic change have been obliterated by the multi-pronged assault of
> communist witch hunts and McCarthyism, along with deindustrialization, a
> slew of anti-labor laws and deregulation, and corporate seizure of our
> public and private institutions. This has left us nearly defenseless.
>
> The corporate state ignores the suffering of the majority of Americans. It
> rams through policies that make the suffering worse. This is about to get
> turbocharged under Donald Trump. Institutions, the courts among them, that
> once were able to check the excesses of power are slavish subsidiaries of
> corporate power. And the most prescient critics of corporate power-Noam
> Chomsky, Ralph Nader and others-have been blacklisted and locked out by
> corporate media, including a public broadcasting system that depends on
> corporate money.
>
> We will have to build movements and, most importantly, new, parallel
> institutions that challenge the hegemony of corporate power. It will not be
> easy. It will take time. We must not accept foundation money and grants
> from
> established institutions that seek to curtail the radical process of
> reconstituting society. Trusting in the system, and especially the
> Democratic Party, to carry out reform and wrest back our democracy ensures
> our enslavement.
>
> "Power is organized people and organized money," Gecan told me when I
> interviewed him
> (http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_talks_with_michael_gecan_
> build_organizations_empower_20170109 ) in New York recently. "Most
> activists stress organized people and forget organized money. As
> organizers,
> we stress both."
>
> "We think the issues are, in a sense, the easy part," said Gecan, who is
> the
> co-director of the Industrial Areas Foundation
> (http://www.industrialareasfoundation.org/ ) , the largest network of
> community-based organizations in the United States. He is also the author
> of
> "Going Public
> (http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/58847/going-public-by-michael-gecan
> /9781400076499/ ) : An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action." "When we go to
> a place like East Brooklyn, or South Bronx, or the west side of Chicago,
> you
> can take a ride around the neighborhood and see many of the issues right up
> front. What we can't see is-is there a fabric of relationships among
> institutions and leaders in those areas? We spend the first year, or two,
> or
> three, building that. Identifying leaders. Identifying institutions that
> are
> actually grounded in those communities. Doing training with leaders.
> Raising
> money so that the organization doesn't run out of money right at the
> start."
>
> "We don't take government money," he said. "We want independence. We want
> ownership. We want people to have skin in the game. We want people to be
> able to walk away from any situation they want to, to confront anyone they
> want to, without worrying about having their budget being slashed or
> eliminated. So we stress both. Organized people and organized money is
> essentially building the foundation of the organization first. And then,
> once that's fairly solid, we begin identifying issues through a real,
> deliberate process of house meetings, individual meetings, soliciting to
> people. And not just doing a poll in the community. [We find out] what do
> you care about? What are you concerned about? By asking people what they
> are
> concerned about and are they willing to do something about it."
>
> This process of institution building permits organizers and activists to
> eventually pit power against power.
>
> "The decision-making in those situations is not about merit, how nice you
> are, or how deep the need is," Gecan said. "It's about do you have enough
> power to compel a reaction from the state or a reaction from the corporate
> sector. When people say what are you building around, I say we're building
> around power. People who understand power tend to have the patience to
> build
> a base, do the training, raise the money, so when they go into action they
> surprise people."
>
> The corporate press echoes the pronouncements of the power elites. It is
> blind to the undercurrents and moods of the wider society. It did not
> anticipate the election of Trump any more than it did the financial crash
> in
> 2008. It does not report on the lives of ordinary men and women. It shuts
> out their voices and renders them invisible. And it-like the power
> structure-will be among the last to know that the bankrupt social and
> political systems that sustain it are collapsing. Once the ruling ideology,
> in our case neoliberalism
> (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-proble
> m-george-monbiot ) , is understood by the public as a tool for corporate
> and
> oligarchic pillage, coercion is all the state has left.
>
> I asked Gecan what characteristics he looks for in identifying leaders.
> "Anger," he shot back. "It's not hot anger. It's not rhetorical anger. It's
> not the ability to give a speech. It's deep anger that comes from grief.
> People in the community who look at their children, look at their schools,
> look at their blocks, and they grieve. They feel the loss of that. Often,
> those people are not the best speaker or the best-known people in the
> community. But they're very deep. They have great relationships with other
> people. And they can build trust with other people because they're not
> self-promotional. They're about what the issues are in the community. So we
> look for anger. We look for the pilot light of leadership. It's always
> there. It's always burning. Good leaders know to turn it up and down
> depending on the circumstance."
>
> If we are to succeed we will have to make alliances with people and groups
> whose professed political stances are different from ours and at times
> unpalatable to us. We will have to shed our ideological purity. Saul
> Alinsky
> (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-saul-alinsky/ ) , whose successor, Ed
> Chambers
> (http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/edward-chambers-community-organizin
> gs-unforgiving-hero ) , was Gecan's mentor, argued that the ideological
> rigidity of the left-something epitomized in identity politics and
> political
> correctness-effectively severed it from the lives of working men and women.
> This was especially true during the Vietnam War when college students led
> the anti-war protests and the sons of the working class did the fighting
> and
> dying in Vietnam. But it is true today as liberals and the left dismiss
> Trump supporters as irredeemable racists and bigots and ignore their
> feelings of betrayal and very real suffering. Condemning those who support
> Trump is political suicide. Alinsky detested such moral litmus tests. He
> insisted that there were "no permanent enemies, no permanent allies, only
> permanent interests."
>
> "We have to listen to people unlike ourselves," Gecan said, observing that
> this will be achieved not through the internet but through face-to-face
> relationships. "And once we've built a relationship we can agitate them and
> be willing to be agitated by them."
>
> The homogenization of culture in the wake of the death of the local press
> and local civic, church and other groups has played a large part in our
> disempowerment, Gecan argues. We have lost connection with those around us.
> We do not fully understand the corporate structures of power that wreak
> havoc with our lives both nationally and in our communities. And this is by
> the design of the corporate state.
>
> "Over seventy-five years the process of community dissolution that took
> place in Back of the Yards has been mirrored in thousands of U.S.
> communities," Gecan wrote of Alinsky's first community organization, Back
> of
> the Yards Neighborhood Council
> (http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/100.html ) , founded in
> 1939 in Chicago. "Everywhere the tightly-knit worlds of a dozen or so
> blocks-where workplace, church, neighborhood, recreation, tavern, and
> political affiliation were all deeply entwined-have given way to exurban
> enclaves, long commutes, gathered congregations, matchmaker websites, and
> fitness clubs filled with customers who don't know one another. A world
> where local news was critically important and closely followed-often
> delivered by local publishers and reporters and passed along by word of
> mouth-has been replaced by the constant flow of real and fake news arriving
> through social media. A world of physically imposing and present
> institutions and organizations has morphed into a culture of global
> economic
> dynamics and fitful national mobilizations built around charismatic
> figures."
>
> "You have to organize who is in front of you," Gecan said. "Not who used to
> be in front of you. In places like Chicago, Cleveland or Baltimore, the
> congregation used to be very robust. Congregations that were strong are
> weaker. We're still organizing with them but still looking at different
> institutions. Schools are institutions. They're more complicated, but
> they're institutions in those neighborhoods. We're recruiting schools in
> many places; sometimes it's housing groups. Sometimes we build new
> institutions called East Brooklyn Congregations or United Power for Action
> and Justice. We're recruiting the best of the existing, we're working with
> the existing to reconnect with people and expand. And we find new
> institutions. It has to be institutional in some way."
>
> Gecan concedes that America's future under a Trump presidency, and amid
> democratic institutions' collapse and climate change, is bleak. But he
> warned against falling into despair or apathy.
>
> "In 1980 in New York, all the liberal establishment, the entire
> establishment, was saying New York would never be as strong as it once
> was,"
> he said. "It was called benign neglect. They wrote off parts of New York
> permanently in their minds." But community groups, including Brooklyn
> Congregations, which built 5,000 low-income homes, organized to save
> themselves.
>
> "Our organizations and our leaders simply didn't accept that judgment from
> the elites," Gecan said. "Things are tough, hard, but we're going to build
> an organization. We're going to identify things we can correct and correct
> them-with government if we can, or without it. We'll raise our own money.
> We'll figure out our housing strategy. We'll hire our own developer and
> general manager. It's about being more flexible and plastic about
> solutions.
> It's not relying on what the state or market says is possible. It's
> creating
> your own options."
>
> Institution building is possible only if you "engage institutions or create
> newer and better ones-whether it's churches or civic unions," he said.
> Without these, the power in the other two sectors-corporate and
> governmental-dominates.
>
> The state, he said, has learned how to manipulate familiar protest rituals
> and render them impotent. He dismisses as meaningless political theater the
> kind of boutique activism in which demonstrators coordinate and even
> choreograph protests with the police. Activists spend a few hours, maybe a
> night, in jail and then assume they have credentials as dissidents. Gecan
> called these "fake arrests." "Everyone looks like they've had an action,"
> he
> said. "They haven't."
>
> He called the choreographed protests sterile re-enactments of the protests
> of the 1960s. Genuine protest, he said, has to defy the rules. It cannot be
> predicable. It has to disrupt power. It has to surprise those in authority.
> And these kinds of protests are greeted with anger by the state.
>
> No movement will survive, he said, unless it is built on the foundation of
> deep community relationships. Organizers must learn to listen, even to
> those
> who do not agree with them. Only then are organization and active
> resistance
> possible.
>
> "Three things have to be happening in great organizations: people have to
> be
> relating, people have to be learning, people have to be acting," he said.
> "In many religious circles, there's some learning going on, there's a
> little
> bit of relating going on, but there's no action. There's no external
> action.
> And it's killed many institutions. In a lot of activism, there's a lot of
> acting but there's not much relating or learning, so people make the same
> mistakes again and again."
>
> "I was in Wisconsin during the [Gov. Scott] Walker situation
> (http://www.occupy.com/article/protesters-descend-madison-rejecting-gov-scot
> t-walkers-anti-union-law#sthash.2xjY28Ft.dpbs ) and the reaction to it,"
> he
> said about the 2011 protests by union members and their supporters. "They
> did 23 major demonstrations. Fifty [thousand], 70 [thousand], 100,000
> people. After the second or third I said to those people, why are you doing
> all this? Because as you do these, you can't be building relationships in
> local communities. And you don't know what your own members are thinking
> about this situation. It ended up being unfortunately the case."
>
> "Can we rebuild unions?" Gecan asked. "We can. It takes time. And we're
> doing it in some parts of the country. Can we rebuild civic life in our
> cities? We have and will do more. Can we take these people on? I know we
> can. But it will take different tactics. It will take some very
> unconventional allies that will surprise people."
>
>
>
>
>
>
> We Were Warned About Barack Obama-by Obama Himself
>
>
>
>
> Oxfam Finds Eight Men Have as Much Wealth as Half of the World's
> Population
>
>
>
>
> In the Age of Trumpian Reaction, Is MLK's Legacy to the 99 Percent Being
> Reversed?
>
>
>
>
> Six Reasons Why Trump's Wall is Even Dumber Than Most of Trump's Other
> Ideas
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines
>
>
>
>
>
> C 2017 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.
>
>
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>
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>
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>
>

Re: [blind-democracy] Re: The 'Hidden Figures' Jeff Sessions Wants to Keep in the Shadows

To Richard and to All who have biases...in other words, all living People!

Often we accuse one another of being biased when we actually mean,
liar. Is Bill Moyers biased? Is Jeff Sessions biased? Or is one of
them deceptive in attempting to hide their real beliefs?
If we are unbiased, as most of us want to believe we are, we will look
at the records of these two men and make our decision based upon their
records. Now, in my entire time on this list, I've never denied that
I am a biased individual. Opinionated, too! But I believe that I try
not to cram my biases down the throat of anyone else, nor use the word
"bias" as a cover for calling others a Liar.
So for me, Jeff Sessions is biased. He has a long public record that
demonstrates his biases. The question we should be asking, instead of
whether an individual is biased or not, is how we can work together to
bring about an end to racial hatred and prejudice and discrimination
toward anyone who does not meet our biased standards?
Is the Bias of the White Ruling Class one we all want to be measured by?
We are all swimming in a pool that is so contaminated that it is
difficult to see how it can be cleaned up. Especially when we are in
deep denial. Especially when our first defense of those supporters of
the long established White Supremacy is to attack anyone who exposes
their true beliefs.
Discrimination is so deeply entrenched in America, that we find it
hard to believe that we are not the wonderful, caring People we tell
ourselves we are.
My first wife and I belonged to a Protestant Church in North Seattle.
All White. Then two young sisters began to attend Sunday School.
They were Black. No one from the congregation ever knocked on the
family's door and invited the parents to attend any of our services or
church functions. After several weeks of not fitting in, the two
sisters quit attending.
That same Fall, a young Mexican man appeared in our church. Dressed
in clean trousers, a white shirt without a tie, and well scrubbed, he
sat in the back Pew. No one else sat with him. He had the entire Pew
to himself. He could have lain down and taken a snooze. After the
morning service, church members walked around this man, looking past
him and not speaking to him. My wife and I came up to him and thanked
him for choosing our church. After we talked a bit, he said he was
trying to earn enough money to bring his wife and baby daughter up
from Mexico. He asked if we knew of any work. He was a skilled
Gardner. We asked him if he could mow and weed our yard. For several
weeks he came around and did an excellent job. We did what we could
do to spread the word, and he began picking up enough jobs in the area
that he bought an old pickup truck to haul his equipment in. But each
week he came to church and sat in the back Pew, alone. When
Thanksgiving came around, my wife and I invited him to join us for
dinner. Our church friends were shocked and concerned. "You don't
really know this man. He could come into your home and rob you." My
mother-in-law said, "What if he knocks you out and rapes Judy(my first
wife)?"
We had a most enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner. No robbery, no rapes, no
hard words at all. Such a kind and gentle man, and our church family
passed up the privilege of knowing him. Sometime shortly after
Thanksgiving, he drove back to Mexico and brought his wife and
daughter to live here. He called us and told us that they had moved
to an affordable apartment in the South End of Seattle, and we never
saw him again.
As for that White Church Family, over the years their children moved
away to the far corners of the world, and the older members died, and
the younger members became old and died, until there were so few of
them left that they sold the church building and went...I have no idea
where. I had long ago left the closed world of those White
Christians, in order to live in the real world.

Carl Jarvis


On 1/13/17, Richard Driscoll <llocsirdsr@att.net> wrote:
> All:
>
> Do you think Mr. Moyers is biased?
>
> Richard
>
>
> On 1/12/2017 4:52 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
>> The 'Hidden Figures' Jeff Sessions Wants to Keep in the Shadows
>> Published on
>> Thursday, January 12, 2017
>> by
>> Common Dreams
>> The 'Hidden Figures' Jeff Sessions Wants to Keep in the Shadows
>> A new movie reminds us of past racial injustice as a new administration
>> tries to roll back the clock
>> by
>> Bill Moyers
>>
>> A scene from Hidden Figures. (Image: Courtesy 20th Century Fox)
>> As the Senate hearings for Jeff Sessions' nomination as attorney general
>> ran
>> into their second day, I kept thinking about the movie Hidden Figures,
>> which
>> my wife Judith and I saw three days earlier. The film is based on a book
>> by
>> Margot Lee Shetterly about three African-American women in the early
>> 1960s
>> who lived in the segregated South while working on NASA's first manned
>> space
>> missions.
>> These women were educated engineers and mathematicians - one a prodigy
>> with
>> an extraordinary capacity for calculating numbers and theorems in her
>> head.
>> When astronaut John Glenn prepared to become the first American to orbit
>> the
>> Earth, calculations for his re-entry into the atmosphere require an
>> urgent
>> adjustment. Glenn knows whom to ask for: "the smart one," he says of
>> Katherine Johnson, played in the movie by Taraji P. Henson. Sure enough,
>> she
>> gets it exactly right - in the film just as she did in real life.
>> "Benign in manner, soft of voice but hard at the core, Jeff Sessions is
>> the
>> perfect figurehead for the resurgent white nationalists who now aim not
>> to
>> make history but reverse it."
>> Yet for all her skill and talent - for all her genius - Johnson and the
>> other black women are routinely subjected to humiliation and insults, to
>> the
>> condescension and cruelty that were the common lot of black Americans
>> when
>> "Whites Only" and "Colored Only" signs - and burly state troopers
>> enforcing
>> Jim Crow laws - maintained strict segregation between the races.
>> Despite several white restrooms in the NASA control center where she
>> works,
>> whenever nature calls Johnson has to run half a mile to the colored
>> bathroom
>> in another building. She is the only black and the sole woman among an
>> all-white team who will not even allow her to share the coffee machine.
>> When
>> she is called out for taking such lengthy breaks, her suppressed anguish
>> at
>> the second-class treatment suddenly erupts. You can feel her pain - and
>> then
>> the shame of her boss, played by Kevin Costner.
>> While her friend Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) oversees 30 or more
>> black
>> "computers," as the women officially were identified, she is consistently
>> and rudely denied the title and pay of white supervisors. Mary Jackson
>> (Janelle Monae), the third woman, is barred from attending engineering
>> courses at the town's all-white school until a judge reluctantly agrees
>> she
>> can attend - the night class. Somehow these three survived the malice,
>> meanness and pervasive oppression of everyday life to carry on successful
>> lives with dignity intact.
>> Washington, DC in the mid-'60s glowed with pride over America's besting
>> of
>> the Soviets up in the heavens, and there I got to know NASA Administrator
>> Jim Webb. I attended meetings on space policy over which he presided,
>> shared
>> in moments of celebration at the agency's successes and relished his
>> boisterous remembrances of the first thrilling but precarious days of the
>> space program. I never heard these women mentioned. There were no
>> shout-outs
>> to them, no newspaper features, no official recognition. They were
>> swallowed
>> back into anonymity and invisibility - into the suffocating holding pen
>> that
>> was American apartheid.
>> The civil rights movement was then beginning to gain force, a power that
>> would bring change, and at the end of Hidden Figures, we see photographs
>> of
>> the real women and learn they finally earned recognition through
>> intelligence, skill and hard work. As we left the theater we saw
>> tear-stained faces throughout the auditorium, and we ran into several
>> friends who had unabashedly wept both in joy for the three women and
>> their
>> "ultimate triumph," as one said, and in sadness at "the long neglect
>> through
>> which they had to pass."
>> I thought again of those photographs later that evening during the Golden
>> Globe Awards, when Tracee Ellis Ross of the TV series Black-ish dedicated
>> her award "for all of the women, women of color and colorful people,
>> whose
>> stories, ideas, thoughts are not always considered worthy, and valid and
>> important. But I want you to know that I see you. We see you."
>> Finally.
>> If he could, Jeff Sessions would take back all the racial progress. Now
>> he
>> will at last have the chance to turn the clock back, which is why Donald
>> Trump chose him. I watched Sessions feint and evade during the hearings
>> and
>> thought what an insult his appointment is to a half-century of history in
>> which the civil rights movement helped end overt oppression and won for
>> Johnson, Vaughan, Jackson and countless others the standing and
>> recognition
>> they earned and deserved as citizens. As Americans.
>> So much struggle and sacrifice over the years, so many burning churches,
>> mutilated bodies, ticking bombs and bloodshed - so much venomous human
>> behavior before we finally began to get it right. Racism still remains a
>> powerful toxic stream flowing through American life. Too many people are
>> still unseen.
>> Through his career as a prosecutor in Alabama and as a US senator Jeff
>> Sessions has done what he could to frustrate the gains of all the "hidden
>> figures" among us by attempting to disenfranchise or suppress their
>> votes.
>> He called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 "an intrusion" before cynically
>> voting to reauthorize it and then quickly signing on to a Republican
>> effort
>> to undermine it. When the conservative Supreme Court eventually gutted
>> the
>> Voting Rights Act in 2013, Sessions said it was "good news. for the
>> South."
>> Since then he has championed voter-ID laws and remained indifferent as
>> Republican state legislatures undertook a massive campaign of repression
>> against black voters.
>> In the 1980s he prosecuted civil rights activists on dubious charges -
>> behavior that when coupled with an allegation that he'd called a black
>> colleague "boy," cost him a Reagan-era appointment as a federal judge.
>> The
>> NAACP, which Sessions once called "un-American," describes his record on
>> voting rights as "unreliable at best and hostile at worst," and also
>> notes
>> "a failing record on other civil rights; a record of racially offensive
>> remarks and behavior; and [a] dismal record on criminal justice reform
>> issues."
>> And he opposed reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.
>> Benign in manner, soft of voice but hard at the core, Jeff Sessions is
>> the
>> perfect figurehead for the resurgent white nationalists who now aim not
>> to
>> make history but reverse it - by a hundred years or more if they can.
>> This
>> is the man to whom Donald Trump is handing the enforcement of our laws
>> from
>> civil and voting rights to environmental protection, antitrust
>> enforcement,
>> housing, employment and all the rest.
>> Expect new laws but little justice, and be vigilant as America's shadows
>> become ever more crowded with hidden figures of every shade.
>> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
>> 3.0
>> License
>> Skip to main content
>> //
>> . DONATE
>> . SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTER
>>
>>
>> Thursday, January 12, 2017
>> . Home
>> . World
>> . U.S.
>> . Canada
>> . Climate
>> . War & Peace
>> . Economy
>> . Rights
>> . Solutions
>> The 'Hidden Figures' Jeff Sessions Wants to Keep in the Shadows
>> Published on
>> Thursday, January 12, 2017
>> by
>> Common Dreams
>> The 'Hidden Figures' Jeff Sessions Wants to Keep in the Shadows
>> A new movie reminds us of past racial injustice as a new administration
>> tries to roll back the clock
>> by
>> Bill Moyers
>> . 1 Comments
>> .
>> . A scene from Hidden Figures. (Image: Courtesy 20th Century Fox)
>> . As the Senate hearings for Jeff Sessions' nomination as attorney
>> general ran into their second day, I kept thinking about the movie Hidden
>> Figures, which my wife Judith and I saw three days earlier. The film is
>> based on a book by Margot Lee Shetterly about three African-American
>> women
>> in the early 1960s who lived in the segregated South while working on
>> NASA's
>> first manned space missions.
>> . These women were educated engineers and mathematicians - one a
>> prodigy with an extraordinary capacity for calculating numbers and
>> theorems
>> in her head. When astronaut John Glenn prepared to become the first
>> American
>> to orbit the Earth, calculations for his re-entry into the atmosphere
>> require an urgent adjustment. Glenn knows whom to ask for: "the smart
>> one,"
>> he says of Katherine Johnson, played in the movie by Taraji P. Henson.
>> Sure
>> enough, she gets it exactly right - in the film just as she did in real
>> life.
>> . "Benign in manner, soft of voice but hard at the core, Jeff Sessions
>> is the perfect figurehead for the resurgent white nationalists who now
>> aim
>> not to make history but reverse it."
>> . Yet for all her skill and talent - for all her genius - Johnson and
>> the other black women are routinely subjected to humiliation and insults,
>> to
>> the condescension and cruelty that were the common lot of black Americans
>> when "Whites Only" and "Colored Only" signs - and burly state troopers
>> enforcing Jim Crow laws - maintained strict segregation between the
>> races.
>> Despite several white restrooms in the NASA control center where she
>> works,
>> whenever nature calls Johnson has to run half a mile to the colored
>> bathroom
>> in another building. She is the only black and the sole woman among an
>> all-white team who will not even allow her to share the coffee machine.
>> When
>> she is called out for taking such lengthy breaks, her suppressed anguish
>> at
>> the second-class treatment suddenly erupts. You can feel her pain - and
>> then
>> the shame of her boss, played by Kevin Costner.
>> While her friend Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) oversees 30 or more
>> black
>> "computers," as the women officially were identified, she is consistently
>> and rudely denied the title and pay of white supervisors. Mary Jackson
>> (Janelle Monae), the third woman, is barred from attending engineering
>> courses at the town's all-white school until a judge reluctantly agrees
>> she
>> can attend - the night class. Somehow these three survived the malice,
>> meanness and pervasive oppression of everyday life to carry on successful
>> lives with dignity intact.
>> Washington, DC in the mid-'60s glowed with pride over America's besting
>> of
>> the Soviets up in the heavens, and there I got to know NASA Administrator
>> Jim Webb. I attended meetings on space policy over which he presided,
>> shared
>> in moments of celebration at the agency's successes and relished his
>> boisterous remembrances of the first thrilling but precarious days of the
>> space program. I never heard these women mentioned. There were no
>> shout-outs
>> to them, no newspaper features, no official recognition. They were
>> swallowed
>> back into anonymity and invisibility - into the suffocating holding pen
>> that
>> was American apartheid.
>> The civil rights movement was then beginning to gain force, a power that
>> would bring change, and at the end of Hidden Figures, we see photographs
>> of
>> the real women and learn they finally earned recognition through
>> intelligence, skill and hard work. As we left the theater we saw
>> tear-stained faces throughout the auditorium, and we ran into several
>> friends who had unabashedly wept both in joy for the three women and
>> their
>> "ultimate triumph," as one said, and in sadness at "the long neglect
>> through
>> which they had to pass."
>> I thought again of those photographs later that evening during the Golden
>> Globe Awards, when Tracee Ellis Ross of the TV series Black-ish dedicated
>> her award "for all of the women, women of color and colorful people,
>> whose
>> stories, ideas, thoughts are not always considered worthy, and valid and
>> important. But I want you to know that I see you. We see you."
>> Finally.
>> If he could, Jeff Sessions would take back all the racial progress. Now
>> he
>> will at last have the chance to turn the clock back, which is why Donald
>> Trump chose him. I watched Sessions feint and evade during the hearings
>> and
>> thought what an insult his appointment is to a half-century of history in
>> which the civil rights movement helped end overt oppression and won for
>> Johnson, Vaughan, Jackson and countless others the standing and
>> recognition
>> they earned and deserved as citizens. As Americans.
>> So much struggle and sacrifice over the years, so many burning churches,
>> mutilated bodies, ticking bombs and bloodshed - so much venomous human
>> behavior before we finally began to get it right. Racism still remains a
>> powerful toxic stream flowing through American life. Too many people are
>> still unseen.
>> Through his career as a prosecutor in Alabama and as a US senator Jeff
>> Sessions has done what he could to frustrate the gains of all the "hidden
>> figures" among us by attempting to disenfranchise or suppress their
>> votes.
>> He called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 "an intrusion" before cynically
>> voting to reauthorize it and then quickly signing on to a Republican
>> effort
>> to undermine it. When the conservative Supreme Court eventually gutted
>> the
>> Voting Rights Act in 2013, Sessions said it was "good news. for the
>> South."
>> Since then he has championed voter-ID laws and remained indifferent as
>> Republican state legislatures undertook a massive campaign of repression
>> against black voters.
>> In the 1980s he prosecuted civil rights activists on dubious charges -
>> behavior that when coupled with an allegation that he'd called a black
>> colleague "boy," cost him a Reagan-era appointment as a federal judge.
>> The
>> NAACP, which Sessions once called "un-American," describes his record on
>> voting rights as "unreliable at best and hostile at worst," and also
>> notes
>> "a failing record on other civil rights; a record of racially offensive
>> remarks and behavior; and [a] dismal record on criminal justice reform
>> issues."
>> And he opposed reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.
>> Benign in manner, soft of voice but hard at the core, Jeff Sessions is
>> the
>> perfect figurehead for the resurgent white nationalists who now aim not
>> to
>> make history but reverse it - by a hundred years or more if they can.
>> This
>> is the man to whom Donald Trump is handing the enforcement of our laws
>> from
>> civil and voting rights to environmental protection, antitrust
>> enforcement,
>> housing, employment and all the rest.
>> Expect new laws but little justice, and be vigilant as America's shadows
>> become ever more crowded with hidden figures of every shade.
>> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
>> 3.0
>> License
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>